Rainbow Valley Matt Corby

• 1 Light My Dart Up 03:59
• 2 No Ordinary Life 03:59
• 3 All That I See 03:46
• 4 Get With the Times 03:14
• 5 All Fired Up 04:30
• 6 How It Ends 00:38
• 7 New Day Coming 04:35
• 8 Better 04:00
• 9 Miracle Love 04:22
• 10 Elements 04:51
• 11 Rainbow Valley 03:49
• Total Runtime 41:43

Info for Rainbow Valley

After his breakout hit ‘Brother’, the blue-eyed soulster kept fans waiting years for a debut album. When it arrived, Telluric was an impressive exhibition of Corby’s talents, but it was knotty.

“I could have spent another 10 years on it,” the musician tells triple j’s Richard Kingsmill (hear the full interview here and on the 2018 podcast), saying it was just a relief to get his debut album out of the way. “On reflection, there’s a couple [of Telluric tracks] I thought ‘What kind of place was I in to write a song like that?’.”

Twisted by some of the anxieties of his swelling success, Corby unpacked his thoughts over complex grooves, wrestling with uncertainty over brooding funk and earthy folk that he jokingly referred to as “junkyard shop” music.

Rainbow Valley is not like that.

It’s like a weight has lifted; a dreamy, evocative listen that’s blossomed from a place of positivity. It’s musically dense but holds your hand and guides you through rather than keeping you at a distance. It’s a heady evolution of the sounds Corby’s been toying with over his 11-year career but makes those ideas infectious and accessible. It's one of the year's most accomplished Australian albums.

From the idyllic whimsy of ‘No Ordinary Life’ to the richly-textured ‘All That I See’ and ‘Better’, it’s a listen capable of transporting you with its dreamlike atmosphere, but grounds its multi-dimensional psych-pop and futuristic soul with sterling melodies and slinky beats.

You can hear shades of singular visionaries like Bon Iver or Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, assuming they were holed up in a tropical rainforest rather than their respective wintry log cabins or Fremantle coastlines.

Rainbow Valley is named after Corby’s rural property in the Northern NSW hinterland “on a little mountainside suburb… far off the beaten track,” and its lush, organic results simply couldn’t have been made in an inner-city environment.

“Definitely not,” Corby concurs. “My surroundings definitely played a big part in the record. Where we are up there is really dreamy: amazing rainforest, space for days, beautiful.”

After tinkering on ideas in his home studio, Corby decamped to Mullumbimby’s tranquil Music Farm studios to begin writing and recording. To help capture the music bubbling in his head, he reunited with the team behind Telluric, including engineer Matthew Neighbour and Dann Hume.

An experienced producer who’s been on a roll working with Amy Shark and Client Liaison, Hume helped curb Corby’s instincts to overstate and overplay. “He would tell me when to stop, basically,” Matt explains.

“He calls me Captain Fiddle Fingers because I can’t help myself when I’m on an instrument, I just do too much and it ends up sounding ridiculous. Normally the very first thing I do is good and it just gets worse and worse from that point on. I overthink everything, ‘let’s change key four times’ he’s like ‘No’!”

Another close collaborator was Alex Henriksson, who Corby describes as a “Jedi guru”. A former housemate and foil who’s worked with the likes of Tia Gostelow and Robbie Miller, Heriksson co-wrote some of Telluric’s wilder moments, like ‘Empires Attraction’ and ‘Sooth Lady Wine’.

“I think he’s probably going to be a fairly well-known songwriter-producer in the next 10 years,” says Corby. “He’s a little bit weirder than Dan.”

“He’s someone that values every idea and will try and see it through to a point, even if it’s completely psycho… Sometimes he doesn’t have to do anything, he can just be the perfect sounding board." Together, they wrote the title track, ‘Rainbow Valley’, and ‘Get With The Times’, on which Corby plays the drums with Sharpie textas to get the necessary snare crack. ...

Matt Corby, guitar, vocals

Matt Corby
has certainly carved a unique path for someone that started his career aged 16 on a reality TV talent show in 2007. In 2009, he independently released his debut EP ‘Song For...’ before relocating to London and signing with renowned UK indie label Communion after capturing the attention of the label’s owner; Ben Lovett of Mumford and Sons fame. In July 2010, he recorded his second EP ‘Transition to Colour’ in London with Ian Grimble (The Libertines, Seasick Steve) and has since recorded the classic track ‘By My Side’ with iconic Aussie band INXS for their ‘Original Sin’ album and featured on a track on Julia Stone’s debut album ‘The Memory Machine’. Live, Matt continues to win over audiences and new fans touring the country with the likes of Mumford and Sons and most recently UK alternate rockers Elbow on their Australian tours. Matt has spent the last month bunkered down in the studio recording his new EP ‘Into The Flame’ which is scheduled for release next month. The four track ep was recorded at studio 301 with tim carr at the helm (ernest ellis, Jonathon boulet). The lead track from the EP ‘Brother’ is arguably Corby’s most assured work to date; it showcases a fresh injection of soulful vocals and bluesy melodies bound together with his unique style of melodic folk. Matt Corby new EP ‘Into The Flame’ out November 11.

This album contains no booklet.